Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Using the Stick

Another Monday, another ICC 10 run. And another test of my "talents" as a raid lead. I run a very open leadership style. If you have a suggestion of how to stomp a boss, I want to hear it. If you sign up, I want you to raid. If you see something I can do better, I want to know.

It can be a good way to raid--when it works. Sometimes, though, the raid lead needs to lay down the law. We were heading to another "special" night of wiping on Lord Marrowgar. I didn't have good sign ups at the time I was doing the slotting--and went with the raiders I had--not the ones I would have wanted. Proactively, and unusual for me, I sent out a private message to those who had signed up, saying why I had slotted as I had and hoped for some melee cancellations. It sounded a bit harsher in text after I read it, but it worked (at least so far, and I didn't get any flames in my mail box afterword).

In the end I did have to lay down the law--but not by ranting and raving but with a simple "Unless I see significant progress on this attempt I am going to stop wasting everyone's time and money here." That attempt was great until the RNG got us at about 20%--dead ranged DPS, spiked healer about a second before Bone Storm...

The next attempt got us Lord Marrowgar (who gave me his tanking weapon!), then a 1 shot on Lady Deathwhisper and the Gunship Battle. And a quality attempt on Sourfang.

So in the end, the threatened stop focused everyone tremendously, and netted much better results. We'll see if that carries to next week too, with good, early sign ups and focus next Monday.